video. omissions from. the disaster in japan hours after an eight point nine earthquake triggered a tsunami now another threat looms japan's nuclear reactors are on red alert radiation lover levels now a thousand times normal so could your pan be on the brink of its own turn noble disaster. sending mixed messages as the u.s. vice president praises the reset with russia another u.s. official seems to be stuck in another decade cold war mentality anyone. and now with the old then in with the new is it time for the new york times to get

with the times the huffington post seems to think so we'll debate old media versus news. as the on rest in the mideast unfold how will the u.s. react from oil interests to keeping allies land of the free is finding itself in this work spot. it's friday march eleventh seven pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for now you're watching our t.v. . well we continue our coverage following the eight point nine earthquake struck off the coast of japan now the aftereffects include not only aftershocks but fears of a radioactive fallout after a japanese nuclear power plant northeast of tokyo is having some major issues the radiation levels now a thousand times normal levels i want to go now to columbus ohio and speak to

harvey wasserman is the author of solar topia are green powered earth eighty three . harvey i know we spoke a few hours ago but i want to get the latest as the sun comes up in japan and the radioactive levels get extremely high can you tell us what's happening. now when last we talked about one reactor down it seems like there as many as three reactors that are under stress and japan in the wake of this earthquake and tsunami the radiation levels at one of the fukushima reactors where we've been talking about have risen as you said seem to be a thousand times higher than normal outside the reactor this is a very very troubling sign they may not have the capability of cooling this reactor they they've admitted that what appears to be the case is that the batteries and the even a backup generators are not working and if that's the case then they're going to have to flood the reactor core and if they do that it's highly likely they'll be

major radiation releases i've seen also in some of the reports indicate that the pressure inside the containment is twice the design capability and that means that the only way they can prevent the containment from blowing is to release radiation outside the stacks. gases are going to go out radiation is going to go out that's why they're evacuating people three thousand people a lot of people go back to a especially in a situation where the country is already under extreme stress so this is a serious situation. you know we've been monitoring this situation throughout the day and it seems that things are are changing they're developing you know this this radiation level that a thousand times normal that's somewhat new in the last few hours different things change and it seems from you know what i read it takes hours for each new step to

happen when will we know if this is you know horrible and apocalyptic as you have said in the past or if this is fixable how long will this take we don't know if that's part of the promise dulness or the other you know the other situation is we could well have another other aftershock or another quake because it's very common if that happens especially other quake of this magnitude eight point nine is close to being off scale and there actually apparently was a separate earthquake that occurred in northern japan within the last twenty four hours you also have to remember this is the second time in four years that six or more japanese reactors have been shut down because of an earthquake one of the really worrisome things is that the eight point nine shock may have weakened all of the reactors and if they if that's weakened the reactors then there's an aftershock or another earthquake could do substantially more damage this point the way it's forty years old a very old reactor and that's

a double edged sword because number one it means it's weaker structurally and number two there's more radiation inside the reactor because it's accumulated over forty years this is this is about a worst case scenario and we are just hoping that the fact they can put in new batteries and then we don't know if they are side power the question is is it going to be sufficient to keep this plant from melting because if it does melt the pressure will build up and it could really do some significant damage and so interesting that you say that the age of these plants because i know and a lot of what i've been reading they say japan the country as a whole really of boy did a lot of damage. the buildings there are so up to code but when you talk about these nuclear stations i guess it's a different story forty years ago probably a lot of things have not been updated i want to know what you think about the strategy so far the response i know the threat it's only one strategy that is to

pump water to keep this thing cool and if they can't keep it cool then they're going to have to jump water in there and then you really have taken your chances because you don't know what's going to happen because in an older reactor we have something called a broom and that means that the metal in the reactor has been bombarded for forty years now with extremely hot water and with radiation and one of the things the issues we've dealt with here in the united states on older reactors is there's a fear that if you have an accident and you have to dump in water in the emergency core cooling system if it hits brittle barrels of the metal will shatter and if the metal shatters inside this reactor we've got a very you know you're talking a pocket of potentially with that situation you don't even have to breach the containment because the radiation will go out the stacks there's no way to keep that from happening and that's why i also wanted to talk a little bit more about certainly this is the radiation one hundred one for

a lot of us trying to put all these pieces together and figure out how does all work but you know one of our guests talked about containment that should usually be used in this situation and yet we're seeing instead this steam tension radioactive steam being released into the air why release into the air as opposed to you know using these containment methods because the containment is not strong enough to contain that pressure inside there what's going on there so in order to alleviate some of the pressure that they're trying to do a controlled release this was also done a three mile island the pressure inside is just too great i would bet there's probably a hydrogen bubble in there as. well in hydrogen eyes extremely dangerous if it's concentrated because it can explode i would say this thing all general electric reactor. those containment are very very weak much weaker than most of president you know and we could have a worst case scenario as you can if the pressure builds up if they can't release

the pressure fast enough and it reaches containment that it's all going to come out and then again we've got and since it's an old reactor there's a lot of residual radiation in harvey i got to bring it up you just brought it up i think the question is on a lot of people's minds tonight this year we're coming up on the twenty fifth anniversary of that disaster at chernobyl a lot of people think quite a bit of similarities here you know. certainly that disaster in the ukraine so many after effects are being felt today that would be felt for lifetimes to come can you see a connection is there a possibility that what's happening here in japan it could be very similar to that well we started to to come out of last year a show that nine hundred eighty five thousand people were likely killed by chernobyl and that you know what happened in a remote area rural area a relatively poor area of ukraine this is

a japan for god's sakes you know others are over one hundred million people living in an area the size of california and it's even more concentrated because people live along the coast. that's all god forbid from a major accident at this reactor would far exceed what happened at chernobyl almost without it. and of course it would wipe out an area or make it uninhabitable that is tremendously valuable when i got to interrupt you harvey you just said it that what's happening here could far exceed what happened at her noble yes because of the concentration of people you have little more people in the area around fukushima. the other japanese reactors then you did a chernobyl chernobyl and the closest city it was eighty kilometers was yeah and the damage was done i think there are people all around this reactor. machinery just like in california the four reactors that it's an outbreak and dabble can't

you know they're not remote anymore there are suburbs all over there you have a canyon is ten miles assume we have this though this this is much more dangerous in terms of human life and you know us and certainly we know it's hard to comprehend but i'm afraid it's true i know i did see a quote today from someone with the u.s. geological survey it said that the energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month's worth of energy consumption in the united states certainly puts it in perspective for you harvey wasserman author of solar topia are green powered earth eighty twenty three and certainly when disasters like this occur the aftershocks emotional financial even political are felt around the world now we're going to time when so much is interconnected the world is changing or so that when it comes to those who are friends and those who are potential enemies are that there are some top officials in this country who like to highlight how the landscape has

changed and others whose rhetoric appears to harken back to cold war times take a look certainly the right the russians have you know still have a very formal nuclear arsenal even with which does pose you know potentially a mortal threat to us americans right russia as one of the top five countries threatening american security two years ago this year only two percent. of the entire american population say they view russia as a true. only two percent but it appears that the top intelligence official in this country james clapper who you saw there might be part of that two percent of course he did later backtrack he said he was simply talking about capability when referring to russia and china as a quote mortal threat earlier i talked to ivan eland senior fellow at the independent institute as part of our conversation. well i think the problem that we

have here is the or cold war thinking and you can talk about capabilities and intent and we can do that except that we have a double standard in the country there are other nuclear powers that can hit the united states as well as in the eye pakistan france and britain and israel are those countries could all conceivably in some way get a weapon here in north korea can't yet but let's just take those countries we don't think of them they have the capability to do it but we don't call them mortal threats whereas china and russia have the capabilities but we call them moral threats and i think this is left over from the cold war we think that all those other countries couldn't possibly be intending any ill will harm to the u.s. but but russia and china might want to talk about this i mean take a guy like james clapper certainly older than you and i he grew up in a generation you know a time when when russia was a threat when he was conditioned to believe that you know this red scare this was

a dangerous place it was a dangerous time do you think that this is just the mentality that's left over do you think he sort of speaks for a generation that is still alive and making important decisions yeah i think so it's generational but i think they're also in the foreign policy community here in the united states still is still some residue among even younger analysts on russia because of the cold war and to some extent china as well because of the history of the cold war you know that's forty some years of hostility and it takes a while to get rid of that and i think the obama administration is moving their direction i think the intent of the obama administration the arms control treaty and other improvements in u.s. russian relations i think is moving the policy but you still have people who talk this way and he does probably he probably was talking about capabilities and in can't but the problem is his mindset is still in the old ways and it's probably somewhat generational yes well that's what i was going to ask i mean why do you

suppose when asked you know. directly asked this question i believe from senator from west virginia joe manchin why do you think that he didn't say pakistan or india or iran well i do i just think you know that china and russia traditionally in the cold war were the enemies and they also had the biggest nuclear arsenals and of course by his standards the u.s. would be the biggest enemy of those two countries the biggest mortal threat as senator levin pointed out to him that if you take a standard the other way you know you have to you have to deal with that so if you're talking about capabilities the united states has the most robust nuclear arsenal on the planet how do we change this you know how how do you see in the future or this changing i mean do we just wait for this you know the new generation to sort of take charge or the new way of thinking where you know we grew up in a time where we had the start treaty where we have you know we're friendly with russia. what needs to change for these statements not to be made anyway but i think

time will help and i think the more the more we can improve relations and the more we get past the cold war both in time and in mentality you know these people will retire and that sort of thing and i think the situation will be improved so i think you know that as long as we improve relations and keep to keep things moving in the right direction this this mentality will pass now i think one thing that will occur is that china will probably become the biggest threat because of the economic growth and the double digit increases in defense of course their defense budget is still much lower than the u.s. has but this will become the threat so actually russia may benefit from that because one of the reasons that we're the united states is improving relations with russia is to use as a counterweight to china and this is the exact opposite of what richard nixon did in the seventy's he developed a relationship with china which was more radical than the soviet union to use as a counterweight against the soviet union so it's just a reversal of policy but it's the same it's the same sort of contain. strategy and

we saw in the situation we showed earlier james clapper you know kind of grouping russia and china together we remember we have this strategic arms reduction treaty with russia we don't have it with china do you think that's going to play or all in like you said making china the next target well i think so but i think actually it's reversed i think the arms reduction treaty was a result of the improvement in russian relations and i think the reason for that is because u.s. is you know encircling china we're improving relations with india which we were a traditional during the cold war and we're strengthening the alliances in the east around china as well so i think you're seeing in and circumvent of china and us russian relations the improvement of those are designed to. complete the circle now is ivan eland senior fellow at the independent institute. a living are now so a different kind of tension that exists between the old guard and the new i'm

talking about journalism and what is often a tug of war between the older more established press like say a new york times and the new or web centered publication like for example the having to post and found there is a battle brewing between those specific organizations but started when editor bill keller wrote a piece staunchly critical of the huffington post and its format you know linking to several different sources on its on its site here with us georgetown university professor of journalism professor chris chambers chris less confident about this is really turning into an interesting thing that we've been sort of take place back in for us now huffington post we've all been on the site big headlines a lot of different subject matter how we say bill keller new york times he calls this aggregation and he says quote the queen of aggregation is of course arianna huffington who has discovered that if you take celebrity gossip adorable kitten

videos post front page bloggers and news reports and other publications he says you know people will come so you know on one hand we've got a look at the numbers here arianna huffington always asked them if that estimates that she has seventy percent more unique page views than the new york times so what's going on here with us well back and forth is it's a lot more complicated than a battle of you know godzilla versus road and in the old japanese monster movies it's it's not an ego thing it is a structural thing but it's also not as is as top located or not well complicated not as simple as old media versus new in new york times has invested a lot into beefing up its online presence yes or area on the turns around and says well we have a lot more people coming to see you know the new lot a lot more people go see a stupid romantic comedy. and a really complex drama i mean there's no mystery there the fact is the new york

times is the source of a lot of the news that they quote aggregate on to other sources in other words yes they do pick and choose and cherry pick other stories you know based their essays and their stories on other people's work because there's not a lot of original news gathering here anymore and we've talked about that people cutting back bureaus excel or so that does happen they do aggregate yes but they're not as much of show business or stupidity as keller might think either i mean they do have a have a pretty good professional staff and they did mention that the new york times has lost some of their you know most well known staff and return to have to help out and post on the daily beast and others i mean yes so they they are not the circus that everybody keller seems to think they are he referred to them once as a slave galleys commanded by pirates there are some optimistic that there but he is he's being a little bit too so simplistic she is probably being a little bit too high in my the the truth is in the middle somewhere well as it

always is but we also have to block the money that follow the money that cross new york times losing money and how much longer does this continue i mean certainly bill keller said in his article he said you know we inferred that there are real certainly you know and i am having to pay some of her we have her life not to use their contract on her website but the fact is when it comes to a business the l a l well then my new york times a well huffington post right because it's odd is a good deal but you know it can i mean there's there's a cadillac and there's a subaru i mean a new york times is still a cadillac it's going to be plotting it's going to be slow but it has that it's called the gray lady it has that brand and it's worth a lot more money you know believe it or not then that huffington post and what a.o.l. pay for huffington. because it is creating real content the reporters are really

going out and tracking down sources eccentric cetera so they have that going for them but again in the present climate where people are mining news for people are looking for stuff that appeals to them and a validates their own point of view you could say validates a liberal point of view with huffington post validates a conservative point of view with fox and certain blogs people aren't looking for that deep analysis they're looking for stuff that the validates their own opinions and they can get those quickest be it about politics or charlie sheen but i was just about to say a you know people also look for even intelligent people look for the gap that they look for those cute kitten videos do you need those cute kitten videos those gossip those blogs yet to be successful get macuser you do but you can mix it and i think that again the times is a little bit over here but moving towards huffington post i'm going to post as it is way over here but it's not everything is moving towards the middle you need to kittens you need charlie sheen but you need the real news you need the sources of

news not just aggregating and putting your name on stuff and i think that that had a lot to do with the problems here and that she got a little miffed because he wore less accused her personally of plagiarism so yes it did jump to the ego thing but again there's something beneath the ego and she grabbed a bunch of examples to say you know why she hadn't plagiarized her piece ended by the way with your current girl in that battle in this fight which could be somewhat playful who wins who wins that argument and who wins long term success battle i think i think they're both when i mean again your turn bill obviously there's something i mean you don't have to be a media specialist to see that somebody is setting up for some for some more eyeballs on sites and more talking on the on the news as we are now i think that both the new york times is building a wall so that people will they can charge people for their content she is obviously building a huge brand over at a.o.l. they both went along i don't see the new york times going down anytime soon all

right journalism professor at georgetown university chris chambers thanks for joining us. turning out attention of a different kind unrest in the middle east we want to turn to some examples of countries whose undemocratic regimes close ties to washington put the obama administration in a bind talking about saudi arabia the planned day of rage there never came to be what the protesters hopes were dashed by strict security measures and stern warnings i saw the officials against any protests so why would the u.s. that what should the government say it's not a lot to say about what's going on in other countries but not saudi arabia joining me for more is wayne madsen investigative journalist and r.t. contributor so that's going on here right now you know these people they just want to gather in the street they have many different reasons for why they want to think got together and yet it was totally stopped well there was a large police presence in saudi arabia but i would note the other thing i don't think some networks like al-jazeera because of what happened with the earthquake

and tsunami in japan gave it as much coverage as they the saudi protestors would have liked but saudi arabia of course is a different kettle of fish altogether no one's calling for a no fly zone over saudi arabia because frankly we have the flight we were in charge of the defense air defense of saudi arabia we gave them a wax planes we helped a man those planes so so anyway it's a different issue but i would note that general clapper the director of national intelligence probably was woefully honest when he said look it looks like khadafi may prevail here. it looks like the rebels may be defeated he's in a lot of hot water primarily by the national security advisor tom donilon differences on downward joe biden for a number of years he's a political hack work for the biggest political hacks or of all time joe biden clapper is a former director of the defense intelligence agency he's just being willfully

honest i think they've drawn the obama administration is really drawing a line. in a saying because they represent the issues are the interests of wall street and the oil companies and the banks and the banks and the and they will companies are saying no more regime change tunisia oil producer egypt not a big one that's it they don't want to see any more of this turmoil in the middle east maybe it's in our death and these things get put to rest but you know that's of course in the hands of many of the protesters we were talking before this all about this concept of democracy and some of these you know eastern north african countries a lot of people still under the you know and question perhaps if they want the u.s. to help them get it that's not always the case it's done in saudi arabia i've spoken to people in the saudi opposition they've been accused the u.s. administration does their favorite thing they always pull the al qaida of bogeyman

out of there had they said oh all of the the opposition in saudi arabia's broad base called the islamic. it goes from secular people all away over to fairly moderate or logistical but they all have one they want democracy now we see this spreading there's a call for a parliament directly elected a united arab emirates we know what's happening in bahrain a call for the ouster of that regime that month monarchical regime kuwait oman yemen all allies of the united states i think they like i say i think they don't want to see any more turmoil look at obama's record i mean he basically approve the co against president ally in honduras democratically elected as the cia for fingerprints on the attempted coup against president correa in ecuador if obama has done nothing to support the red shirts who are going out protesting months after months in bangkok against that military imposed regime obama when it comes to those

he taught he talks he doesn't act when it comes to pro-democracy. really a fraud i mean i want to handle when you got a look at some of these protests and a lot of these people are hopeful based on what they've seen and you know the u.s. has had a role in some other and some of these countries whether by what they've done or what they've said it's very inspiring that it's sort of spreading like wildfire this desire for democracy or at least this desire to have their voices heard what do you see as happening next i mean you said the u.s. has drawn a line in the sand but isn't it possible that this could just continue well with the u.s. giving basically unconditional support to regimes like saudi arabia let's look at the other end of this. arc of. morocco the king there is offered up some pablum to the people a new constitution i think that's the that's the really what's playing out here the

obama administration is telling some of these leaders give them something the saudi king throws billions of dollars at the people. they promise reforms the moroccan king promises of reform they're not going to see much in any way reforms what what's happened in bahrain for example were we have a military base naval base there were supporters still supporting the king of bahrain anything that they saying they're going to do now well let's see the proof is in the putting we still have people demonstrating against a u.s. imposed puppet in baghdad maliki and the u.s. has tens of thousands troops troops there protecting him all we hear from hillary clinton no. others and you know this ration it's always a run over runs going to change and it's never anything else they've got a script for following from wall street in the case of iran it's from the israel lobby here in washington and that's all that's the only song they know out of seeing is that they're that refrain and that's a return to a song that they're not singing sort of what we started with the saudi arabia it's

really interesting when you look at saudi arabia i mean think about nine eleven we think about. wars waged in the name of the nine eleven guess what fifteen of nineteen hijackers on nine eleven were from saudi arabia we don't hear much guess what country of saudi arabia the kingdom i guess has spent twenty million dollars since that day since our levon right down the street expensive lobbyist i will history to remake their image to make it so americans think and believe they are the good guys talk about this being able to use this oil money oh absolutely many of these countries have huge lobbying efforts here and i would note that one of the saudi princes is a significant investor in news corp which runs fox news so there we go not only the lobbying but the media itself this is the saudis of course have tried to play it both ways so i i really think we're not seeing much in the end anyway of real support for democracy.